The Austrian strategy for adaptation to climate change. Part 1 Context.

This Strategy moves from the consideration that climate change has posed, over the last decade, serious threats and challenges not affordable anymore with essential and short-term measures. Therefore, after the launch of the Strategic concept in 2012 for adaptation to climate change’s effects, Austria managed to updated this Strategy, providing a framework for such an adaptation policy, that takes into account all relevant future planning and decision-making processes from the Federal to the local levels. The Strategy’s contents provide for: political environment; objectives; activities for implementing the adaptation strategy; climate change in Austria, including: global climate development, regional scenarios, anticipated future effects of climate change; challenges to adaptation; social aspects of climate change; guiding principles for adaptation, including: share information, foster cooperation, prioritise climate change impacts and adaptation measures, establish a system for monitoring and evaluation; criteria for prioritising the recommendations for action; Federal State initiatives for adaptation; research environment and research needs; good practice; communication, education and support; global context; recommendations for action; resource requirements; outlook and future steps.
The political framework concerns Austrian compliance with the international and European approach towards climate change issues and implementation of Sustainable Development Goals through integration into sector-specific strategies and programs. This Adaptation Strategy, based on grey, green and soft measures, aims at avoiding adverse effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment; at strengthening the natural, social and technical capacity to adapt to risks minimisation to democracy, health, security and social justice; at identifying linkages between the areas of action and related recommendations, in order to avoid negative impacts in other areas and possible conflicts in the implementation process. In accordance with the precautionary principle, the Strategy attempts to lay a foundation for forward-looking actions with regard to future climate change impacts. The Strategy concerns fourteen areas of action, including: agriculture, forestry, water resources and management, protection from natural hazards, disaster management, health, ecosystem biodiversity.
The Strategy tries to anticipate the future effects of climate change related to each area of action: increase in the frequency of droughts, decrease in groundwater supply, heat damage to plants and crops and related decrease in biodiversity, emergence of mutated and new invasive pests damaging plants and plants products, damage to forest ecosystem, reduction of productivity of farm animals, increased risk of flooding, continuation of glacial retreat, increase in surface water and groundwater temperatures, worsening of water supply, changes in availability of renewable energy, changes in species composition, spread of new invasive alien species. Concerning Federal State initiatives on adaptation, the Strategy presents projects including: maintaining protective forests; integrated flood control; maintaining biodiversity; independent and sustainable agriculture; increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewables; elaboration of specific hazard and disaster management plans; erosion prevention; adaptive management for federal forests; catchment management of rivers; sufficient supply of drinking water on hot days; enhancing diversity and creating hiking opportunities;